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My New Book: Marie-Antoinette’s Legacy

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I‘m very pleased to announce that my book, Marie-Antoinette’s Legacy: The Politics of French Garden Patronage and Picturesque Design, 1775-1867 is now available for purchase.  

Since Marie-Antoinette was crowned queen of France almost two hundred years ago, her exceptional arts patronage has been acclaimed by historians, art critics and connoisseurs. Less well known, is her design of two garden enclaves at Versailles that significantly influenced French history and modern landscape design. She reimagined garden strolling by championing the picturesque style at the Petit Trianon, where S-curved paths encouraged visitors to discover fanciful architecture hidden by flowering shrubberies and sweet-smelling blooms. The queen’s designs were so innovative that despite her regicide, her gardens not only survived the French Revolution, but also inspired three empresses—Joséphine, Marie-Louise, and Eugénie—to forge their own garden legacies in the nineteenth century.

The queen’s and empresses’s gardens were simultaneously public and private spaces, at the symbolic center of court societies, where each consort developed programs that transgressed sociopolitical boundaries. Debunking one of the central tenets of French garden historiography that considers their gardens as sites of excessive ostentation and frivolity, Marie-Antoinette, Joséphine, Marie-Louise and Eugènie emerge as visionary garden patrons who materialised hotly contested issues of power, gender and identity politics through the picturesque experience at Versailles and Malmaison.

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Surprising Stories: Let them Eat Cake… or Not 

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Since Sofia Coppola’s blockbuster movie Marie-Antoinette opened in 2006, influencers, politicians and fashionistas have focused on the queen’s unpredictable destiny as an allegory of contemporary events. One of the most recent examples appeared in Stephanie Grisham’s telltale biography of Melania Trump (2021), where the author described the former first lady as ‘The doomed French queen, Marie-Antoinette, “Dismissive. Defeated, Detached.” Similarly, at the 89th Oscar ceremonies in 2017, The New York Times critic A.O Scott qualified the host Jimmy Kimmel’s decision to flash the cameras on tourists in the audience as “a cringe-worthy moment of Marie Antoinette obtuseness — ah, look, little people!” Marie-Antoinette ‘moments’ have become a cipher for misreading cultural clues, but perhaps it’s time to reconsider this moniker from a new perspective? In the latest edition of our Surprising Stories series we highlight how several of the well-known stories about Marie-Antoinette can be reconsidered, offering new ways to imagine the queen and her legacy. 

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Best Small Museums with Cafés and Gardens

One of the best ways to enjoy the Parisian art scene is to visit the more intimate collections housed in smaller museums in the city. Often located in historic buildings, until recently, the gardens surrounding these museums were neglected. In our post covid-world, museums have now recognized that their gardens are assets to them and to the public. Some more famous venues, like the Musée Carnavalet, the Palais Galleria and the Petit Palais, have added either ephemeral or permanent cafés where visitors can enjoy the gardens over an alfresco lunch, yet the real benefit of the renaissance for museum gardens is enjoying the flowers. Paris’s gardeners dedicate considerable time and significant expense to maintain the cities’ gardens, often cultivating plants that enchant the eye and scintillate the nose. Enliven all your senses by stopping in at our favorite café-gardens in the city.

Musée Delacroix, DRAC Ile-de-France

Musée Delacroix

Bordering the church at Saint-Germain-des-Prés and set on the historic Square Furstemberg, the apartment and studio where Eugène Delacroix lived between 1857 until 1863 is an ideal place to enjoy the calm on the Left Bank. Nestled within the buildings and facing the the Romantic artist’s studio, this secret address in Paris is where the most dedicated art lovers take the time to enjoy this sublime hidden garden dotted with blooming fruit trees, tulips and benches.

6, rue de Furstemberg, 75006 Paris

Musée de la Vie Romantique

Musée de la Vie Romantique / Facebook

Musée de la Vie Romantique

Down a shady path leading to the former Scheffer-Renan home, now housing the Musée de la Vie Romantique, a lush garden awaits the visitor. Rosebushes, lilacs, and a sea of violet bellflowers both enchant and hint at the importance of flowers in 19th century life. The former garden grotto, designed by Émilie Bonaventure, is home to a café run by the renowned Rose Bakery, and excellent example of reconverting a historic space into a temple of healthy treats.

 16, rue Chaptal, 75009 Paris 

Musée de Montmartre

Perched on the crest of the hill, just a stone’s throw from Place du Tertre, the Musée de Montmartre and its three gardens charm visitors to this historic site. The gardens are dedicated to the memory of Auguste Renoir, who had a studio in the complex in the 1870s. Boasting heritage roses and fruit trees, the gardens feature an abundance of other flowers, notably iris and peonies, inspired by Renoir’s paintings. One the three gardens includes a soaring view over the Clos Montmartre, the largest vineyard in Paris with over 1,700 vines. Since 1934, these have been celebrated every October during la Fête des Vendanges de Montmartre. Overlooking the main garden is the Café Renoir, where you can savor sweet and savory dishes before visiting the studio of the other artists who lived on this site: Suzanne Valadon and her son Maurice Utrillo. The Museum is included in our Montmartre tour, learn more about it at this link.

12-14, rue Cortot, 75018 Paris

Maison de Balzac

Maison de Balzac

Maison de Balzac

Hidden from view on the Passy hill in western Paris, Honoré de Balzac’s former home and gardens are an emerald anomaly. The writer lived there between 1840 and 1847 to escape the debt collectors and write part of the Comédie Humaine. His personal belongings are on display beside works annotated by the author.  Peppered with linden and fruit trees, the graceful garden spans almost 7,000 square-feet. It also hosts a Rose Bakery café, where you can pick up a teatime treat to be enjoyed in the garden along with splendid views of the Eiffel Tower.

47, rue Raynouard, 75016 Paris 

Musée Zadkine

Musée Zadkine / Facebook

Musée Zadkine

A quiet street off of rue d’Assas hides a little-known Zadkine Museum, the former house and studio where one of the masters of cubism lived between 1928 and 1967. Bathed in light, the gallery spaces and glass front overlooks a pastoral garden. The small garden, where several of the artist’s work are nestled amidst the greenery, is an oasis of calm and little visited gem.

100, bis Rue d’Assas, 75006 Paris,

Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac / Facebook

The Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac

Wondering where to go after a visit to the Eiffel Tower? Located on the banks of the Seine, the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac exhibits 3,500 works of art from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania. Its original and imposing architecture was designed by famed French architect Jean Nouvel and includes a green wall by botanist Patrick Blanc. The garden, created by the ecologist-landscape architect Gilles Clement, who also designed the nearby Parc André Citroên, promotes an ecological naturalism. Clément uses no chemicals, no supplemental watering and no noisy, energy-wasting machinery. To complement the museum’s collections, his design is dominated by grasses. Extend your visit with a snack at Café Jacques, found within the garden, or a more sophisticated meal at Les Ombres, the museum’s rooftop restaurant which has panoramic views of la Tour Eiffel.

Interested in combining art and gardens on your next trip to Paris? We have a range of tours designed to achieve this. Read more about them here or contact us to plan the perfect tour to suit your interests.

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The Hidden Gardens of Paris

Two hundred years ago, when Emperor Napoleon III transformed Paris into a modern metropolis, he singularly championed public parks. He gifted two former hunting grounds—the Bois de Boulogne at the western edge of the city and the Bois de Vincennes on the eastern periphery—to expand the city limits. Linking these parks to the historic Tuileries and Luxembourg gardens, he provided Parisians and tourists alike with places to stroll, rest and play throughout the year. Less well known, is the fact the Napoleon III tucked small squares and gardens into each of the twenty arrondissements, so that every Parisian has his or her own favorite local paradise. Nestled into corners, off beaten paths, these lesser known gardens of Paris are not necessarily secret, but hidden.  They each offer unexpected treats, a place to watch birds, discover heritage roses, or a quiet place to read while waiting for a train. The trick is to find them. Here’s a guide to our favorite spots so that you can enjoy the hidden gardens of Paris. Read more

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Surprising Stories: Hot Chocolate fit for Kings and Queens

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De Smaak, Jacob Gole, 1695-1724, Rijks Museum

With the cool airs descending on Paris as winter approaches, there’s no tastier way to warm up than with a thick cup of chocolat chaud. The history of hot chocolate in France began over four hundred years and involves two foreign queens. Digest the delectable history behind French hot chocolate as well as discover the best places for hot chocolate in Paris in the latest instalment of our Surprising Stories series.

Chocolate was first brought to Europe by Spanish Conquistadors and it was appreciated as a delicacy at the Spanish court. The Spanish royalty, who valued its fortifying and aphrodisiac qualities, jealously guarded the new drink as a state secret. When Philippe III of Spain’s daughter Anne of Austria, left for France to marry Louis XIII in 1615, she brought her favorite beverage with her as a wedding gift. The bride met her husband in Bayonne, a port city in the southwest of France, which is still internationally recognized as the capital of gourmet French chocolates.

Chocolate Pot by John Fawdrey, Victoria & Albert Museum

From Bayonne to Paris, chocolatiers would roast the cocoa beans in ovens then, after cooling the beans in canvas bags, they would pound them in to a paste on a heated stone. Before mechanical processes which separated bean from butter, it took up to an hour of pounding before the paste could be rolled into a sausage-like dough. The chocolate roll was then cut into slices and placed into a chocolatiere, a coffee pot with a wooden handle. By adding warm liquid, or heating from below, the brew was whipped with a wooden handle into a more or less homogenous brewage, a frothy hot chocolate.

An eighteenth-century recipe book gives us some idea of how hot chocolate made for kings:

“Place an equal number of bars of chocolate and cups of water in a cafetiere (coffee pot) and boil on a low heat for a short while; when you are ready to serve, add one egg yolk for four cups and stir over a low heat without allowing to boil. It is better if prepared a day in advance. Those who drink it every day should leave a small amount as flavouring for those who prepare it the next day. Instead of an egg yolk one can add a beaten egg white after having removed the top layer of froth. Mix in a small amount of chocolate from the cafetiere, then add to the cafetiere and finish as with the egg yolk.”

Source: Dinners of the Court or the Art of working with all sorts of foods for serving the best tables following the four seasons, by Menon, 1755.

Hot Chocolate at the Court of Versailles

While this recipe sounds like a power drink, French confectioners added additional ingredients like coffee, vanilla, and cloves to subdue what must have been a rather bitter taste. When Marie-Antoinette married Louis XVI in 1770, she brought her personal chocolate-maker with her to the French court. The queen was one of the first to add sugar to her chocolate, and her official chocolatier created new recipes combining chocolate with orange blossom or sweet almonds.  Ultimately the queen preferred a dollop of cream—perhaps recalling a Viennese recipe—to help sweeten her drinks.

debauve et gallais marie-antoinette

Debauve et Gallais, Pistoles de Marie-Antoinette

The Queen’s love of chocolate was well known in Paris and Versailles. An enterprising pharmacologist, Sulpice Debauve, established an apothecary in 1778 in the fashionable Saint-Germain neighborhood. Here he experimented with chocolate paste that was like an early bonbon or candy. He mixed a headache remedy with coco butter, which he then offered to the Queen. He baptized these medallions ‘Pistoles de Marie-Antoinette’ and he was awarded the title of the first official chocolatier for Louis XVI. The pistoles are still sold today at the historic boutique rue des Saint-Pères.

Photo: Angelina Rivoli

Although hot chocolate has changed since its arrival in the French capital, there are a number of excellent places to sample modern takes on this historic beverage. Here are some of our favorite places:

  • Angelina: Paris’s most famous venue for hot chocolate, the original tea salon on rue de Rivoli has expanded with different outposts around the city and at Versailles where you won’t have to wait as long in line. Take out and make at home kits available. See all branches here.
  • Un Dimanche à Paris: This tea salon and pastry shop boasts divine hot chocolate and a unique location in the historic lane, down from Paris’s oldest existing café and with the remains of a watch tower from the Medieval city walls. Take out also available. 4-8 Cours du Commerce Saint-André, 75006 Paris.
  • Carette: This chic salon de thé overlooking Place des Vosges has decadent hot chocolate best served with a side of their fresh whipped cream and refined pastries. 5 Place des Vosges, 75003 Paris. They also have a location in Place du Trocadero, near the Eiffel Tower, and a takeaway shop in Place du Tertre in Montmartre.
  • Jean Paul Hevin: This renowned Paris chocolatier sells make at home hot chocolate mix as well as take away usually in winter at his various shops, including one in the north Marais on rue de Bretagne. See all locations here.

Please contact us to book or for further information.

 

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A Garden of Scents: Pomades, Pastilles, and French Perfume

Left: Roses, Jill Wellington / Pixabay. Right: Jasmine, watsilchum / Pixabay

Smell is perhaps the most ephemeral of the five senses. Our noses can detect thousands of odors, which we unconsciously categorize as pleasant or repellent, information which is stored in our minds for the rest of our lives. While we easily identify our favorite scents, we tend to forget that perfumes have their own histories, which are often rooted in gardens. For centuries flowers have provide the source material for a range of products, from pomades to soaps, and they continue to be inspire fragrance creators to this day.

A perfumer in the 18th century. Perfume Foundation.

This fascinating image of a seventeenth century printed personification of a perfumer is a veritable walking cosmetics stand. His wares include vials of essences (scented oils or waters), pomades hailing from Rome and Florence, soaps and savonettes from Naples, and an array of eaux de senteurs, all inspired by a thousand flowers.  Although we don’t have many accounts of how people actually used perfumes—as they were applied to the body, hair, and skin—we can trace how some early perfumes were manufactured.

Pomades were made by pressing flowers into animal fats. Distillation, heating petals to capture the fragrant oils released from flowers from the vapor produced  ‘essences’ such as rose water.  Infused oils were also considered perfumes. In the eighteenth century, treatises gave readers ‘recipes’ that instructed them how to make perfumes. For example, in his recipe for rose water Polycarpe Poncelet recommended that one gather roses ‘two or three hours after sunrise’ and then ’crush them in a mortier’. The crushed petals should then be placed into an alambic to distil them, which would produce a rose water with a ‘marvelous scent.’

Lavender fields. Hans / Pixabay

Perfumers worked like apothecaries, stressing the medicinal role of these early perfume recipes. At a time when unpleasant smells were considered signs of diseases, vinegar and spices were used to try to ward off sickness or clean wounds. Our perfumer sold products to cure bad breath that contained the likes of anise, mint or thyme—antecedents to today’s toothpaste.

Daffodils. SanduStefan / Pixabay

Daffodils. SanduStefan / Pixabay

The emergence of France as a capital of perfume production went hand-in-hand with the creation of French gardens. As Louis XIV expanded his gardens at Versailles, he developed a keen interest in floriculture. In order to supply his gardens in both Versailles and Paris with sweet smelling flowers, he established a botancial garden in Toulon for the importation and acclimation of flowering bulbs from across the Mediterranean, especially daffodils and hyacinths.

While the gardens at Toulon did not survive past the Sun King’s reign, this appreciation of heavily scented flowers gave a boost to the perfume industry. Since the middle ages, the town at Grasse, located not far from Toulon, had developed a local flowers, including roses, jasmine, lavender, myrtle and wild mimosa, into a small industry. The guild of glove perfumers was established in the town and the perfumers began marketing ther most prized asset: their  flowers to the court. Today, Grasse is still considered the center of the French perfume industry.

Perfume Making Workshop in Paris

Today’s trends in aromatherapy and  scented candles can be traced to the connection between gardens and perfumes. If you would like to learn more about the history of flowers and perfume, we offer the following thematic experiences in and near Paris:

  • History of Perfume Tour and Workshop: Our 4-hour  tour focus on how flower gardens have supplied the perfume industry for centuries. We visit two historic perfumeries in the Marais before trying your hand at the art form during a perfume workshop where you can make your own fragrance.
  • Visit to the Osmothèque: Not far from the Palace of Versailles, the Osmothèque (from the Greek word to preserve) is a perfume archive that contained over 3,000 perfumes. This living collection of existing or no-longer available perfumes protects the world’s fragrance heritage. Private or group tours can be arranged upon request.

Please contact us to book any of these experiences or to work with us to design a custom Paris perfume experience.

 

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New Exclusive Versailles Tours & Experiences

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Apartments of the King Versailles

Private Apartments of the King Louis XV, Versailles

As an art historian, a specialist on Marie-Antoinette and the gardens at Versailles, I am particularly pleased to lead tours that provide exclusive access to the Private Apartments of King Louis XV or the Private Apartments of the Queen Marie-Antoinette. Learn more about these special Versailles access experiences below.

Private Apartments of the King, Versailles

Private Apartments of the King Louis XV, Versailles

Rococo Splendour: The Private Apartments of King Louis XV

Designed by Louis XIV this suite of ten rooms reveals how Louis XV repurposed and luxuriously decorated rooms for intimate dinners, musical performances and gambling! We will visit the ‘cabinet secret’ where the king met privately with his network of spies. Access to this series of rooms is ideal as an add-on to our main palace tour. 

This VIP experience requires advance booking of 6-8 weeks and may incur additional reservation fees.

Private Apartments of the Queen Versailles

Private Apartments of the Queen Marie-Antoinette Versailles

Private Apartments of the Queen Marie-Antoinette

On either side of Marie-Antoinette’s sumptuous bed in the ceremonial apartments, hidden doors lead to her private apartments. The queen retreated from public life to her library, small salon, and boudoir, where she received courtiers in more intimate settings. This special access tour can be included on a customized half-day tour or a full-day tour of Versailles.

This VIP experience must be booked 3 months prior to your visit and incurs  additional reservation fees.

Versailles

Temple of Love, Petit Trianon, Versailles

The Domaine de la Reine Marie-Antoinette

A special tour entirely dedicated to the queen’s gardens. We begins at the Petit Trianon, where we see how the queen redecorated her villa, developed her English garden, and created her own village and private hamlet. We come to understand how the queen’s gardens became the most enchanting and misunderstood sites in French history.

Please note, there is limited access to the interiors of the Hameau and reservations must be booked at least 3 months in advance.  Please let us know us if you would like to include a visit to the interiors as part of your tour so we can arrange the reservation which will incur additional costs.

Molly Wilkinson Marie-Antoinette pastries

Marie-Antoinette pastries

Let’s Eat Cake!

For those clients passionate about pastry, we also offer a special event  tastings pastries that the queen Marie-Antoinette would have found delicious. In partnership with cordon bleu pastry chef Molly Wilkinson, we discuss gourmet history followed by a tasting of  the queen’s favorite cakes specially prepared for you.

We look forward to sharing these unique Versailles experiences with you. Please contact us to book or for further information.

 

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